Spring Reunion and Nineteenth Annual Meeting 2007 The British Chapter held their Spring Reunion and Nineteenth Annual Meeting in Buxton, in the county of Derbyshire from Friday,18 th to Sunday, 20 th May 2007. The landscape of the Peak District of Derbyshire south of Buxton was beautiful this weekend with its small fields of pasture bounded by dry stone walls, streams and copses and grazed by large and healthy flocks of sheep with young lambs and herds of mostly back-and-white milking cows. The weather was generally kind with lovely late spring sunshine lighting up the rolling landscape and the strong winds typical of the Peak District.
Seventy-three members and spouses/partners/daughters registered for the weekend, including members from the German, Dutch and French Chapters, and the 1818 Society in Washington. We were well accommodated in a fine Victorian hotel, The Palace, overlooking Buxton and enjoyed very good food throughout the weekend.
The weekend started on Friday afternoon with a guided walk around Buxton. After we had all dined well in the hotel restaurant, a small group enjoyed watching “The Decorator”, a play by Donald Churchill in the Buxton Opera House. A larger group gathered in the Haddon Room in the Palace to hear about “Well Dressing”, an ancient custom unique to Derbyshire of elaborately decorating wells to give thanks for the village water supply.
The pictures that are created by the 88village teams are made entirely of natural materials (flowers, berries, stems, leaves and wool) and depict biblical scenes/stories or anniversaries. During the weekend, 1818 members took the opportunity to visit the six decorated wells in the picturesque village of Tissington.
Saturday morning, we went to Chatsworth House, the grandest stately home in the United Kingdom surrounded by its large landscaped garden. John Ducker guided the return to Buxton to show us more of the area. After dinner, Liz Fennell told us about the work that the Britain-Tanzania Society was doing in Tanzania through many small projects. John Ducker then rounded off a very enjoyable day with a short Anecdote of Quarries and Quarrymen in Derbyshire that seemed to involve the imbibing of vast quantities of weak beer.
The Nineteenth Annual Meeting unanimously elected Mick Nightingale to succeed Roger Slade as chairman. All the other Board members who were due to retire by rotation having served two years agreed to stand for re-election and were all re-elected. Most of the meeting was taken up with discussion of how to handle the new tax proposed by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer on the non-cash benefit provided by the World Bank in its subsidy of our Medical Plan premiums. Nick Wallis had done a tremendous amount of work on this new issue and led a very active discussion.
Christine Purdy advised the members that the Outreach Programme is active with a number of retirees providing professional advice to various British NGOs working in developing countries. Robert-Jan van der Lugt updated us on the activities of the Dutch Chapter and Dieter von Samson on the German Chapter. Dieter and Hella encouraged us to join their Chapter members at Lake Constance in September.
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